The noon deadline has passed and Bobby Butler has gone unclaimed after the Senators put him on waivers. Having cleared, the next step for the Senators to rid themselves of Butler’s contract is to buy him out. (Update: And as I was writing the final paragraph of the post, the Senators have officially announced that they have bought him out.)

In the second year of a contract that would have paid him $1.2 million this season, because Butler is younger than 26 years of age, the Senators can buy him out at one-third of his contract value. Such a buyout would be spread out over the course of the 2012/13 and 2013/14 seasons.

The Senators will pay Butler $200,000 per season in real money but according to Capgeek, the cap hit on a potential Butler buyout will be $50,000 in the first year of the deal and $200,000 in the second. (Note: Steve Lloyd has reported that the Butler’s cap hit will actually be $75,000 in the first year of his deal and I’m not sure what accounts for the discrepancy. Nor am I interested in going through the CBA to find out the reasoning, if true, since that $25,000 difference is inconsequential to this team’s cap situation.)

On the subject of Butler, it is somewhat surprising to see him go unclaimed; especially when there are some inferior teams out there that are far removed from the salary cap floor and could afford to gamble on him.